Saved for a Purpose

Scripture says God saved us "according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Purpose comes before grace. God had a purpose to fulfill through each person before time began. When He came to fulfill it, we weren't there; we had wandered. So He came and got us. Salvation is not the end of God's intention. It recovers us for it. Believers are saved not just from something, but for something.

Luke 19:10 says the Son of Man came "to seek and to save that which was lost." What was lost in Eden was more than individual souls. It was the destiny God purposed and the dominion He gave Adam to rule the earth on His behalf. The shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine searches for a sheep that already belongs to him. Redemption restores people to God's original intention, so that new believers are recruited into the kingdom, not merely rescued from judgment.

Salvation is wonderful, worth singing, writing and preaching about, but it is not everything. When salvation is treated as God's final goal, believers settle into waiting: hang on until you die or until He comes. That puts up a stop sign before the intersection to the kingdom. Salvation is a necessary step, the first rung of a ladder that climbs back toward God's original purpose.

Scripture speaks of salvation in every tense. It is a gift received by grace through faith. It is worked out with fear and trembling. Its end is "the salvation of your souls": the renewing of the mind, will and thinking. The gospel by which we are saved is itself progressive: Christ died, was buried, rose again, and was seen. Salvation is not a single moment to defend but a living process to walk in.

All of Zion is within Jerusalem, but not all of Jerusalem is Zion. In the same way, "I'm saved, so I'm in the kingdom" is not a safe assumption. Being saved places a person in the city. Walking in kingdom purpose brings them to the mountain of God.

Jesus told Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus was no backslider. He was a devout teacher of the law, as faithful as anyone in his generation. Jesus was telling a believer that a new dimension was coming that he could not see without a new birth. Many Christians need a second awakening to see the higher purpose God intended from the beginning.

John the Baptist declared the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world: singular, the curse that condemned humanity. That debt is paid. This doesn't mean everyone is automatically saved. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." The goal is not just forgiveness but maturity: the manifestation of the sons of God, mature believers who bear their Father's image and for whom all creation is waiting.

1 John 2 describes three levels of maturity. Little children know their sins are forgiven; they live at the cross, and much of Christianity stays here. Young men have overcome the wicked one; they go back to Eden, crush the serpent's head, and take back dominion. Fathers have known Him who is from the beginning; they reach all the way back to God's purpose before creation. Fulfilling the ultimate purpose of the kingdom requires going back far enough to know what was spoken before the foundation of the world.